m18x and windows aero

It's because their version of OSD does not cause the same conflict with Windows that disables Aero.

 

Well, while we are waiting for a fix from Dell/Alienware, here's a thought...

Disable OSD from automatic startup and place a shortcut on the desktop and/or taskbar. The volume and mute work and media player controls work just fine with the touch panel without OSD. You can launch AWCC for lighting effect changes from the Programs Menu. You can eject a CD in My Computer by right clicking on the drive. If you need longer battery life or decide there's some other legitimate reason to even bother with the Intel IGP, double-click the desktop icon you created for OSD and press FN+F7. Otherwise, OSD is just one more useless thing running in the background. I don't need a visual indicator on my screen to tell me that I pressed a button.

This would allow normal use of the system to see if and when Aero ever flakes out with OSD not running in the background. I just made these changes to my system.

 

With OSD taken out of the automatic startup, I no longer have the delayed shut down message about waiting for programs to close.

 

That message is another thing that annoys the hell outta me! - grrrrr
Good to see that your system is working "as expected" without OSD auto run....so far....

 

I'm gonna jump on this with you and see what happens.

 

So thats what it is! It didnt give me an icon so didnt know which app was slowing it down.

I like this idea immensly.

 

The M17x R3 community has finally voiced their problems with Windows Aero flake outs and their M17x R3, by creating a thread. http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/606203-m17x-r3-aero-issues.html

Maybe we M18x owners and M17x R3 owners can work together to get Dell to produce a fix.

 

Perhaps we can get a thread title change on this very thread to include M17x R3 owners.....might have to get the OP to request, not sure.

 

And move it up a level too?

 

Lets hope that NBR's Lead Moderator, Charles P Jefferies (who is now fully aware of this problem) can get things stepped up a gear or two....

 

Crysis 2(1.9) + DX11 + Hi-Res Texture Pack + maxed settings + Aero Bug = BSOD.

If you max Crysis 2 out and the Aero Bug happends in game, the game will exit to the desktop followed by an immediate BSOD(csrss.exe display error).

If you disable AW OSD the game runs perfectly fine. No chance of BSOD because AW OSD is disabled.

 

Will keep an eye out for this as I have Crysis 2 installed with the v1.9 / DX11 / Hi Res patches. Havent played it a great deal so Aero drop out might force this error. We shall see. No "exit to desktop bsod's" for me so far playing it...btw all maxed out on ultra, seems like our systems can really handle this game!

 

I've just tried Mr Fox's temporary workaround of disabling OSD.
I take it the way to do this is by going to MS Config and disabling the Startup app Alienware On-screen Display.

When I did this, Windows hung on boot, at the fully formed Window logo. Second boot I could log in but it hung as soon as I got to the desktop. Third boot, and I got in . But reverted it straight away! lol

Now this could be related to something else. But I've done no other config changes.

Did i do it the wrong way? Also my Alien head color went, and this eyes stopped flashing for the HDD access.

 

Well. Looks like I have a bigger problem.

 

I highly recommend using this fix.

My computer is dependent on AW OSD as well. Removing/disabling it causes all sorts of problems on both of my M18x's .

 

what sort of behaviour?

 

I loose most of my FN keys and control center keys functionality. I also loose brightness control through the OS and HDMI IN.

 

This is wierd. my machine is fubar.

As i disabled Alien OSD, and have reenabled it...I might just uninstal and reinstall it?

 

This is why it aint a good idea to run your system without OSD.

Also, I wouldnt be too hasty to utilise 3rd party software from external sources (leigh_vh) to try and cure Aero drop out...basically the author clearly states: Note: This utility is in no way endorsed or approved by Dell/Alienware.


No disrespect to leigh but this needs to be fixed by Dell and not any other way....

 

I agree. If I had to choose between OSDw/aero bug or no OSD, I'd choose OSDw/aero bug.

Did you get my PM on switching things up with your foundation? If your not busy, could you log into steam for a few minutes? I have a few questions I want to ask you.

If not no worries.

 

Well i've uninstalled OSD and still have freezes.

I'm going to reinstall OSD now and see what happens.

If not. I guess before I contact DELL I should atempt to rebuild the machine from the disks provided?

I did the diagnostics and it found no errors. Although I did not do the extended memory test. I did run memtest the other day and all was fine.

I have one which says Windows Profession SP1 on it. Pop that in and do a fresh install?

My concern is that this doesnt explain why its all gone wrong. As far as im aware the last thing I did as just disable that start up app for the OSD in msconfig.

 

Hey there Inoton,

Perhaps give System restore a quick try. I know I always give that a try before I will try a OS reinstall or complete wipe.

Just try a couple of earlier restore points and travel back in time per say lol!
See how you go.

Cheers.

 

Inoton - as Windows is not dependent on OSD, it sounds like your machine had something else going haywire. Maybe OSD was corrupt and needed to be reinstalled anyway. You should have seen a very definite improvement in system behavior by preventing OSD from starting with Windows, not a step backward.

The nice thing about the utility leigh_vh provided is you can jumpstart Aero if you prefer to do that rather than disabling Aero from starting with Windows. It worked well for me and I just thought disabling it in the startup process would accomplish the same thing... and it does.

I disabled OSD on my system exactly as you did yours, using MSCONFIG. That would not cause a problem.

Skygunner - brightness controls are still working for me using either the slider in Windows power profiles or a desktop gadget for brightness control. However, the F4/F5 keys do not work without OSD running. The nice thing about disabling OSD and having a desktop shortcut is that you can start OSD manually on demand only if/when you need to use a feature like graphics switching. You lose zero functionality, but don't need to have it running at all times.

Of course, it will be nicer if Dell/Alienware releases an OSD update that fixes the Aero bug so we don't have to use any type of workaround whatsoever. Even if they release an OSD update that fixes this, I may still leave OSD as a run on demand feature on my system. Conceptually, the less there is running unnecessarily in the background, the better.

 

I totally agree with your post.

 

As previously mentioned, not having OSD running in the background also stopped the shutdown message about waiting for programs that my M18x has always experienced. Apparently, something with OSD was resisting the Windows shutdown command in addition to causing Aero to crash.

 

I hate the delayed shut down caused by AW OSD. I'm surprised they allowed that behavior after claiming "M18x: The Most Powerful 18" Laptop in the Universe".

 

Busy day. Just did the OSD startup disable and no issues when restarting or after boot.....yet. Also, for a 3rd party OSD for volume look at 3RVX. Skinnable. Plays nice. Never an issue.

 

Thank you all for the help in troubleshooting and sending us data. We have successfully replicated the issue and are working with several teams here at Dell and with Microsoft to solve it.

 

Great news and thanks for the reply. Keep up the good work.

 

okay ive been reading through this, but im not sure i even understand what the problem is, nor am i familiar with what "aero" is.

Might someone have the heart to explain this?

 

What'd ya do? Read the lasts three posts? JK. Look here- Aero!!!

 

noooooo!! ive been reading, but i just didnt get what aero was, now looking at it, that was kinda foolish, LOL!

 

Thank you for the update.

 

Thank goodness that someone in Dell decided to reply saying that the problem exists, it seems that, in the Technical Department in the UK, the problem ONLY exists on ATI cards, not in Nvidia, and we all know that the problem is in all cards....honestly, bunch of liars....

 

Just a quick note to add my thanks to Chris and the Engineering Team at Dell. Lets all hope that this is the beginning of the end of "Aero Bug"......also, thanks for the update here on NBR and over on Dell/Alienware Club. Much appreciated to be kept "in the loop".

 

Thank you ChrisM for your good work and for mantaining us "in touch" with the Dellienware Teams... Hopefully, with your kind help as a sensitive "interface", a better (direct, more dinamic, more dialogical...) two way comunication between the customers and the team (with the help of this space at NBR) will eventually derive in better products (and better quality control at designing, manufacturing and delivering...).
g.

 

Thanks for the update, Chris. We appreciate it very much. +1 Rep for being such a good liaison.

 

Great to hear a direct response from Dell. +1 rep.

 

I am still getting the random occurance of Aero Flake-out - had one this morning from a cold boot......just thought I would bump the thread!

 

I found this link on dells website. Probably posted here already but 89 pages of stuff? wow. Lets keep this fire burning.

Dell Aero

 

That worries me. If Dell thinks that will fix the Aero Bug then we are farther away from a fix than I thought...............

Here's another one Alienware : The Best Custom Built Gaming PC for the Ultimate PC Gamer! .

 

Worries me too if thats ALL Dell could come up with.....oh, and I specifically like the recommneded fix to....wait for it.....

Disable Sofyyhinks.

WTH?

 

lol.........................

 

I think that has been up there for a while.

I'm sure they know about the problem back at the labs. ATI/nVidea, Dell and MS will be working on it together I'm sure of it.

It's a problem that needs to be sorted...so other companies dont't suffer from it too.

 

It has been up there for awhile. It still needs to be updated. AW techs knew about this problem atleast 3 months ago. Yeah...I read the posts from Dell about a collaborated effort to resolve this problem.
Dell Engineering(AW OSD) and Microsoft(W7) need to figure out what AW OSD is doing to cause this conflict.

 

My faith in Dell resolving this bug is low. I raised a lot of hell about M18x returned yesterday, and sent and email to executives with my contact information. If called, I plan to give them a ear full on how crappy support has been and the lack of commitment to resolve this bug along with the screen issue that I experienced. I am willing to bet that I do not get a call....that will confirm they really do not care.

 

AND you will notice, its only 2.5 weeks old from todays post.

 

Aero is behaving flawlessly on my system ever since I stopped OSD from starting with Windows on 08/23. I have run WEI, Vantage, 3DMark06 about a dozen times and when Aero turns off it always turns back on when the test completes. As an additional side benefit, I'm not getting the silly prompt telling me that I should to press FN+F7 and switch to the IGP every time I unplug from AC power.

The article published on Dell's web site is about 20 days old and we had not realized that OSD was the primary cause of the Aero bug at that time.

 

A couple comments:

Fact: This issue is not isolated to a batch of M18x computers. I have had three units (still have one) and they all have the Aero bug.

Fact: Chris M wanted a unit shipped to him for testing purposes. Why? All he has to do is take one from the floor and use it. He would experience the bug in a matter of days.

The only way Dell will address this is if they get a large number of complaints from Forums and calls from users opening a case directly. If this issue was a priority to Dell they would have resolved it by now (IMO).

 

Info from Chris indicated that they have had to get MS and ATI on the case with the Dell technicians. This I can easily image would take months to arrange and agree. Contracts, estimates, costs, legals etc.

Now that this has all be sorted from a corporate perspective I'm guessing Chris is now in a position to actually state that they are looking at it.

Prior to this he has to be careful what he says so as not to commit to anything. It may well not be Dells fault from a technical perspective....Sure Dell shouldnt have released the product with such a defect...but that is corporate level. They gotta make money...